Summary

These data were collected to evaluate the Demand Reduction
Program, a program initiated in Maricopa County, Arizona, in 1989 to
combat drug abuse. A consortium of municipal, county, state, and
federal law enforcement agencies developed the program, which stressed
user accountability. The Demand Reduction Program had two objectives:
(1) to create community-wide awareness of the severity of the drug
problem and to alert drug users to the increased risk of legal
sanctions, and (2) to adopt a zero-tolerance position of user
accountability through an emphasis on increased and coordinated law
enforcement activities directed against individual offenders and
special treatment programs in lieu of prosecution. Part 1 of the
collection, Demand Reduction Program Data, provides information on
prosecutor's disposition, arrest date, submitted charges, filed
charges, prior charges, disposition of charges, drugs offender used in
last three months, information on prior drug treatment, type of
attorney, and arrestee's age at arrest, sex, marital status, income,
and living arrangement. Part 2 is a Citizen Survey conducted in
January 1990, ten months after the implementation of the Demand
Reduction Program. Adult residents of Maricopa County were asked in
telephone interviews about their attitudes toward drug use, tax
support for drug treatment, education, and punishment, their knowledge
of the Demand Reduction Program, and demographic information. Parts 3
and 4 supply data from surveys of Maricopa County police officers,
conducted in March 1990 and April 1991, to measure attitudes regarding
the Demand Reduction Program with respect to (1) police effort, (2)
inter-agency cooperation, (3) the harm involved in drug use, and (4)
support for diversion to treatment. The two police surveys contained
identically-worded questions, with only a small number of different
questions asked the second year. Variables include officer's rank,
years at rank, years in department, shift worked, age, sex, ethnicity,
education, marital status, if officer was the primary or secondary
wage earner, officer's perception of and training for the Demand
Reduction Program, and personal attitudes toward drug use. Part 5
provides arrest data from the Maricopa County Task Force, which
arrested drug users through two methods: (1) sweeps of public and
semi-public places, and (2) "reversals," where drug sellers were
arrested and replaced by police officers posing as drug sellers, who
then arrested the drug buyers. Task Force data include arrest date,
operation number, operation beginning and ending date, operation type,
region where operation was conducted, charge resulting from arrest,
Demand Reduction Program identification number, and arrestee's sex,
race, and date of birth.

Citation

Hepburn, John R., Johnston, C. Wayne, and Rogers, Scott. Evaluation of the Maricopa County [Arizona] Demand Reduction Program, 1989-1991. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-01-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09977.v1

Geographic Coverage

Time Period(s)

1989-03 -- 1991-05

Data Collection Notes

Recidivism was defined as any new charge submitted
to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office after the offense which first
brought the offender to the attention of the Demand Reduction
Program. Variables on subsequent charges should be used for recidivism
analysis.

Study Purpose

A consortium of municipal, county, state, and
federal law enforcement agencies located in Maricopa County, Arizona,
initiated the Maricopa County Demand Reduction Program in March 1989.
The Demand Reduction Program was characterized by five features: (1) a
comprehensive program integrating education, law enforcement, and
treatment into a unified campaign against casual drug use, (2) the
complete participation of all law enforcement agencies within the
scope of the Demand Reduction Program, (3) a high level of community
support, including local media and private sector donations of time,
equipment, and materials for the program's advertising campaign, (4)
tough laws which classified any illicit drug use as a felony, and (5)
revenues generated from fees collected from offenders who entered the
diversionary treatment program, based on the type of drug and the
offender's ability to pay. A major goal of the Demand Reduction
Program was to educate the general population and private sector
employers about the harmfulness of drug use and to stress that those
who used drugs would be held legally accountable. Another goal was to
focus on the arrest, prosecution, and possible diversionary treatment
of drug offenders. As a general rule, diversion to treatment was
offered only to casual users with no prior criminal history. Eligible
individuals could refuse to enter the treatment program.

Study Design

Data were compiled from four sources: (1) Arrest
data from the Demand Reduction Program. (2) Arrest data from the
Maricopa County Task Force, which arrested drug users through sweeps
of public and semi-public places, and through "reversals," where
drug sellers were arrested and replaced by police officers posing as
drug sellers, who then arrested the drug buyers. Task Force operations
occurred at a rate of more than one a month and were geographically
dispersed. On two occasions, the Task Force served warrants on
outstanding cases, leading to 31 arrests. During the study's time
period, the Task Force conducted 38 operations, producing a total of
730 arrests. (3) Adult residents of Maricopa County were surveyed to
determine their attitudes toward drug use and to assess how their
attitudes coincided with the philosophy, procedures, and goals of the
Demand Reduction Program. The Citizen Survey was conducted in January
1990, ten months after the implementation of the Demand Reduction
Program. A total of 393 adult residents of Maricopa County were asked
about their attitudes toward drug use, tax support for drug treatment,
education, and punishment, their knowledge of the Demand Reduction
Program, and demographic information. (4) Approximately one year after
the program's implementation, in March 1990, Maricopa County police
officers were surveyed to gauge their perceptions of their training
for the Demand Reduction Program and the amount of police effort and
cooperation involved as well as their personal attitudes concerning
drug use and their support for the program. The survey of police
officers was repeated 13 months later, in April 1991. The two police
surveys were identical except for two variables in the second survey
concerning participation in the first survey. A quasi-experimental
research design was used, employing repeated observations over time to
assess the impact of the Demand Reduction Program on factors such as
the volume of arrests, the percentage of cases formally booked, the
proportion of cases accepted for prosecution, the use of deferred
prosecution, and prosecution outcomes. Additional Task Force data were
collected specific to the Task Force operation which resulted in the
individual's arrest.

Sample

Parts 1 and 5: Cases represent all drug users arrested
by Maricopa County police officers (Part 1) or Task Force officers
(Part 5) between March 1989 and February 1991, whose cases were
reviewed by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office by March 1,
1991. Part 2: The sample of adult residents in Maricopa County was
provided through a random-digit telephone survey method. Parts 3-4:
The sample of police officers was obtained by distributing
questionnaires during the briefing period preceding all three shifts
on each day of one Thursday-Friday-Saturday time period between March
1990 and April 1991.

Universe

Parts 1 and 5: Adult drug users in Maricopa County,
Arizona. Part 2: Adult residents of Maricopa County, Arizona. Parts
3-4: Police officers in participating law enforcement agencies of the
Maricopa County Demand Reduction Program.

Data Source

Data Type(s)

event/transaction data, and survey data

Description of Variables

Part 1: The Demand Reduction Program data provide
information on prosecutor's disposition, arrest date, submitted
charges, filed charges, prior charges, disposition of charges, drugs
used in last three months, information on prior drug treatment, type
of attorney, and arrestee's age at arrest, sex, marital status,
income, and living arrangement. Since data collection ended May 1,
1991, the length of "time at risk" varies considerably between those
who entered the program early and those who entered late. Part 2:
Adult residents of Maricopa County were asked about their attitudes
toward drug use, tax support for drug treatment, education, and
punishment, their knowledge of the Demand Reduction Program, and
demographic information. Parts 3-4: The police surveys provide
officer's rank, years at rank, years in department, shift worked, age,
sex, ethnicity, education, marital status, if officer was the primary
or secondary wage earner, officer's perception of and training for the
Demand Reduction Program, and personal attitudes toward drug use. Part
5: Task Force data include arrest date, operation number, operation
beginning and ending date, operation type, region where operation was
conducted, charge resulting from arrest, Demand Reduction Program
identification number, and arrestee's sex, race, and date of birth.

Response Rates

Parts 1 and 5: Not applicable. Part 2: 99.75
percent. Parts 3-4: Nearly 70 percent of the total number of returned
questionnaires were complete.

Presence of Common Scales

Original Release Date

Version Date

Version History

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 6 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 12 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

1994-06-03 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented.